168, Lot: 193. Estimate $100. Sold for $87. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SYRIA, Trachonitis. Caesarea Panias. Marcus Aurelius. AD 161-169. Æ 24mm (12.80 g). Dated CY 172 (AD 169/170). Laureate bust right, slight drapery on left shoulder / Pan standing facing, head turned right, with legs crossed, leaning right on tree trunk, right hand on hip, playing a flute held in left hand. Rosenberger 11; SNG ANS 872. Near VF, dark brown patina, light roughness.

From the J.S. Wagner Collection.
The springs of Panias (Banias), the source of the Jordan river, have been a sacred site since earliest antiquity. By the Hellenistic period the Greek god Pan became the titular deity of the springs and under the Herodian kings of Judaea the city was embellished with numerous temples and shrines to the gods and the Roman emperors, with the grotto and its statue of Pan as the focal point.